Easter Sunday Scripture Readings The tomb is empty. What do you do now? What do you do after life mocked your life-long hopes and dreams and condemned them to a slow and painful death? What do you do now because it’s dark—too dark to see—and the dawn seems an eternity away? What do you do now that you’ve come to mourn your shattered hopes and broken dreams, but there’s nothing here and nothing’s been left behind? What do you do when there’s not even a corpse left to do a postmortem? How can you know why it happened? How can you know how you failed? What you did wrong? What else you should have done? What you should have known? What signs you should have seen? What do you do when there’s nobody to blame and no lesson to be learned? You run to your friends—your true friends—those who’ve been through it all with you and stood by you. You tell them about what you’ve seen, your panic, your powerlessness. You don’t need to ask them for help. They know you. They care about you. They share your pain. They’re not afraid. They run back with you, back to the darkness, back to the emptiness, back to where it all ended. You’re no longer alone. They carry with them a light, a tiny flame of hope and they brave the void of the tomb where your hopes and dreams had been laid to rest. In the dim light, you see the detritus of death lying scattered about where it once had been spiced and perfumed, and all the loose ends had been neatly tied up. But no more. You see the look of awe shining on friends’ faces as they show you the shadow of your thwarted plans and emptied promises burned into the shroud of death. You begin to see its outline and how it and they and you and the whole world have been forever changed. As the dawn gilds the sky and the mountains and hills and rocks and trees start once again reclaim their shape, you begin to see and understand. The hopes and dreams you were clinging to all this time had to die, after all. They. Were. Too. Small. Христос Воскрес! Воїстено Воскрес! Readings & Homily Video Get articles from H. Les Brown delivered to your email inbox
“Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.”
“I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come! Hosanna in the highest!”
“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”